Are executive salaries too high? Should shareholders have a say in how much chief executives are paid? Should the government?

The Obama administration last week hired Kenneth Feinberg as a "pay czar" to manage the compensation at companies that have taken taxpayer dollars, and announced support for legislative and regulatory efforts aimed at holding directors more accountable for the pay packages that they approve.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner also laid out broad principles on executive compensation, such as tying incentives to long-term performance to reduce short-term risk-taking.

At a time when the average pay of the top five most highly compensated executives in a company is eating up about 9 percent of corporate profits, we asked shareholders what they thought of current pay practices.

Their comments should serve as a wake-up call to laissez-faire corporate directors. More than a dozen shareholders who commented, free-market theorists and social workers alike, said they were disgusted with executive pay levels. They disagreed about whether -- and how -- to limit executive pay but concurred that members of company boards should be held responsible for their actions.

Some support legislation; others want the Securities and Exchange Commission to give shareholders greater rights to oust negligent directors. One suggested throwing the bums in jail.

"I believe in limited government control," said Andy Krinock, a 71-year-old retired certified public accountant. "The suggestion to have government approve salaries is a farce. They are not qualified to judge what a reasonable salary is for a CEO. Many have never held a 'real' job in the private sector."

Krinock contends that corporate boards need an overhaul to ensure that "truly independent directors, not cronies of the CEO" are making decisions on behalf of shareholders. And compensation committees should be prepared to justify their salary decisions to shareholders, who should be able to vote on them for approval, he said.

Stephen Thomas, a 63-year-old retired social worker from Whittier, Calif., said, "More attention needs to be directed toward boards of directors that seem all too willing to play footsie with the CEOs and compensation committees. It's pretty hard to believe that the same class of business wizards that created a house of cards founded on the securitization of mortgages contributes so much more than workers who produce the goods and services that they deserve astronomical paychecks."

Tom Barker, a South Pasadena, Calif., shareholder, also believes that excessive salaries are a product of cronyism on corporate boards that needs to be "nipped in the bud." He suggests having independent contractors find and nominate directors based on their relevant knowledge and experience rather than their ties to management. Employees can present information to the board, but they shouldn't be able to serve on it, he said.

Said Gregory Montgomery, a Northern California architect, "Not only should we limit executive pay, we should get shareholders to revolt against the boards that paid these vulgar salaries and benefits."

The argument that companies must pay massive salaries to hire and retain the best executives struck many of the shareholders as ludicrous. The average U.S. executive earns roughly 300 times more than the average worker. In the rest of the world, the ratio of executive pay to worker pay is far narrower -- from about 11 times worker pay in Japan to 50 times worker pay in Venezuela, said Thomas White, a professor of business ethics at Loyola Marymount University.

Michael Augello, a 43-year-old Los Angeles investor, said, "The U.S. has the highest executive pay" in the world. "If we lower our payouts to executives, exactly where is this place that they would all scuttle off to? And if this mythical place were to appear, how could their replacements possibly do a worse job than they did?"

Excessive executive salaries contribute to a moral breakdown of society, several shareholders contended.

"The increasing gap between the CEO's pay and the average worker is not only capitalism gone wild, but a threat to our society," said Alan E. Smith, a Plano, Texas, video producer.

"There is no moral compass for behavior anymore. No priority on what's good for the company or our nation -- only what can I get away with for myself. That's a price our country can't afford to pay." Continued...